Reb - 2

This is in Bucky's POV

The cold water of the shower was oddly nice. It was refreshing and sent him back to an infuriatingly simple time, a time without thoughts or sound in his head. If Steve ever found out it wouldn't end well.

 His mind was tired but still working much faster than his exhausted body.
Why would the girl help them?
Open her home to them?
What was wrong with her? The last one got him.

 He hadn't noticed when she had that huge coat on but then she had taken off that and then he had noticed how her body was thin and pale in an unhealthy way yet her attitude was chipper as though nothing was wrong.
Had someone done that to her? She had made a reference to her 'not having much time left.'
Was someone coming after her?

 Then she had dropped her cup making such a loud noise. She was in pain but he couldn't see why. Maybe someone had infected her with something painful. It seemed the most plausible.

 Whatever it was Steve had seemed to understand it. He'd ask Steve, he'd know.

 He dressed in the new clothes he had found where the girl had said they were. He carefully pulled that pink hat back around his stub of an arm. It kept his arm warm.
He finally looked at himself in the mirror. It was odd being clean and warm and healthy all at once. His wet hair got in his face. He frowned; he couldn't pull it back up without his other arm.

 His grimy suit lay on the ground of the white bathroom. He picked them up and walked back to the room he had found the clothes in. Carefully he put the suit on the floor in the corner.

The room was white with a light shade of grey. There was quiet music coming from downstairs.
There was a creak of compressed wood and then Steve walked by now in plain clothes holding his suit. Watching him pass he rose and followed. Steve took another room a door down and put his stuff on the dresser along with the two ponchos T'Challa had given them.

 Steve turned and smiled, "Feeling better Buck?"

 Bucky nodded, "I'm warmer."

 "Good. Your gash seems fine and T'Challa did a good job of wielding your arm it looks like." Steve sank into his bed.

 Bucky nodded again. Silence fell and no neither seemed to mind it.
 "What's wrong with her?" Bucky finally blurted.

 Steve blinked, "The girl downstairs?" Bucky nodded.
"Well, she has a terminal illness, Buck." Steve sounded a bit lost on how to explain it. "It'll slowly kill her and there's no cure."

Bucky slowly nodded, "Who did that to her?"

 Steve sighed rubbing his face, "No one, people just get it. Sometimes it comes in a certain family, otherwise, it just happens randomly."

 Bucky frowned, "Like polio?"

 "Kinda. I don't know. We can't catch it but no one can treat it. Her body is attacking itself and she'll eventually die because her body can't support it, killing itself anymore." Steve shrugged.

 Bucky's frown deepened. She was dying. She didn't look like she was dying but then again his version of death was much bloodier.
 Your own body killing itself. Bucky recalled the look on her face after she'd dropped her cup. Her pain. Her body must have attacked itself making her drop her mug.

The thought scared him for a reason he couldn't say. He couldn't trust his mind but his body would do what it was told. Sometimes his body would save him from his mind.
But to have one that wouldn't work?
That hurt to work?
 That scared him just a bit. Bucky hadn't even noticed he'd wandered back to his own room. Steve was now standing in his doorway watching him closely.
"Whatcha thinking Buck?"

 Bucky looked up, "That's," He didn't want to say scary because it wasn't scary to him in a way other things were, "disheartening."

Steve nodded, "It is and from what I can gather her body is getting ready to give up. She wants us to decorate for Christmas for her. It will likely be her last one."

 Christmas. Bucky could remember Christmas or at least he thought he could. Snow and warmth (that confused him because he knew they didn't go together) lights and laughter and just a feeling of happiness and home. Peace. He missed that even though they were only concepts in his head, not memories.

 Steve left him to his thoughts at some point though he didn't remember when. He fell asleep from the exhaustion and for the first time in weeks didn't have a nightmare. It was actually pleasant.

 He woke up early before sunrise when it was still cold. He silently rose and went downstairs.
Some things had changed. She had switched the table runner for a bright red one. There was a creak behind him and he whipped around.
 The girl jumped at his movement all bundled up as she had been earlier. "Sorry! I didn't mean to startle you. I just wanted to watch the sunrise."

 Bucky watched her carefully. She wasn't Hydra even though she spoke Russian. She wasn't military because she didn't move like it. A nurse maybe.
 She moved over to the back glass door and opened it stepping out. The cold air blasted in.
Bucky followed a few feet back.

The sun was slowly rising over the new snow that had come in overnight. It was beautiful. They stood there for thirty minutes watching the sunrise like that. The color bled across the sky and leaked over the snow, making it sparkle and refract in every direction. He saw why she liked it. It was perfect.

After it was done she came back in seeming stiff after being out in the cold. She turned up the heat in the house and turned on the fireplace before walking over the radio and putting on Christmas music. The sound was lively and bright.
 Bucky felt very out of place in her house as it was full of light and brightness.

She was gently swaying to the music when suddenly she froze. Her face scrunched up in pain before she flailed for something as she went down.
 Bucky didn't even think before putting his arm out and caught her. Her body really was giving out from under her. He was then struck with how awkward this was. He helped her stand and waited as she moved from his arm to a chair mumbling a thank you as she sank into the chair.

 She rubbed a spot on her back right at her spine muttering something about cell growth and such. Finally, she looked up at him and sighed, "Sorry about that. I guess my back doesn't like the cold anymore. Thanks for catching me though. It stinks when I bruise my knees."

 Bucky frowned slightly before nodding in acceptance of the thanks. She heaved herself up again shedding her coat. Bucky realized in the back of his mind that her walking around might not be the best option for her but didn't say so.

She hobbled over to the kitchen she had and opened a book flipping through it. "You like pancakes?" She asked not looking up.

 Bucky racked his brain for what pancakes were. They sounded fine but he had no clue if he liked them. She was now looking at him waiting for his answer. He shrugged.

 "Well, I'm craving them so if you don't and aren't telling me to be polite deal with it." She decided with sarcasm looking back to her book.

 Why he would lie to be polite was beyond him but he nodded. She began grabbing things from around the kitchen one hand constantly on the counter to break her fall if she gave out.

Bucky watched her float around the kitchen humming to the song seemingly perfectly unaware of the world beyond her home. It was a good thing he supposed that she didn't know otherwise she never would have let them in her house.

He noticed the album Steve had been looking at the night before. Curiosity got the best of him and Bucky picked it gently up. Laying it on the table he opened it. It was pictures, some of places, others of people, many had the girl in them grinning from ear to ear looking healthy and alive.

 "That's Bermuda." She said, making Bucky lookup.
She nodded to the pictures he had opened to. "People were quite hospitable."

He looked back down at the book. Flipping to the next page it was Sydney, Australia or so she said.
 That's how they were for at least an hour. She worked in the kitchen naming each place the pictures represented while he slowly flipped through them.

 Footsteps came down the stairs and they both looked up. Steve walked over and looked over at the album. "Algiers?"

 She shook her head "Cairo."

 He humphed looking back at the album.
 "Pancakes sound good?" She ask ladling the mixture onto the pan.

 "Sure," Steve said, tossing his old instant ice pack in the trash can. 

"Need a new one?" She asked.

 "Naw coffee will be all. Thanks." Steve fiddled with her coffee maker setting it to go.

 There was a normalcy to them, a peace. Neither seemed all too worried about what came next. Was this what a steady home felt like? Bucky really hoped it did because as foreign as it felt it felt right.
The girl set a plate of round shaped somethings in front of Bucky making him jump a bit.

 "Eat." She turned back to her pan.

So these were pancakes. Bucky felt guilty as he used his hand to grab it and put it in his mouth.
It was wonderful. Pancakes yes he recalled them now they had been called flapjacks the last place he had had them. The perfect round cakes were gone quickly as he devoured.
 His mother used to make these. He faintly recalled only on special occasions though. He remembered wolfing down a plate of the with a small Steve before they both booked it to school in time.
 Pancakes, Bucky decided were quite good. Yes, he did like pancakes at the moment they were his favorite.

 "Slow down there. At that rate feeding, you two is going to be a job in itself." The girl laughed.

 The pang of guilt was lost at her laughter. What a perfect sound the sound of happiness and carefreeness.
Bucky and Steve both looked up sheepishly from their almost empty plates.

She laughed again at them. She put one cake on her plate and slowly ate it. They both got seconds in the time it took her to eat her one.

 When the meal was done Steve first poured coffee for all three of them and then kicked her out of the kitchen and cleaned the dishes while laughing at her fake anger. She gave up and walked over to the garage with Bucky trailing behind her.

He didn't know why but he felt oddly worried that she would give out and hurt herself.
 She flipped on the lights and stepped into the cold room. She knelt down and opened one of the boxes pulling out figurines.

 Bucky stood awkwardly at the door watching as she unwrapped the small porcelain people. The newspaper wrapping indicated they were breakable and the way she smiled over them made him want to hold them and not all at once.

 She finally looked over at him with a smile, "Could you give me a hand?"

 He came quietly to her side. Helping her up she picked up the whole box.
 "Could you grab one of the shepherds?" She nodded to the fragile figurines she had set on the floor before walking out of the room.

 Bucky carefully picked one of the shepherds from the floor. Following her back into the room as she unpacked the box and was surrounded by breakables. She handed them carefully as she placed them on the mantle as the Nativity.

 That's how they all spent the day. Bucky quickly got sidelined to hot chocolate duty since he couldn't do much with just his one hand, not that he minded too much.

 As odd as it was to only have one hand it was freeing. That physical weight, a constant reminder was gone. He knew he couldn't avoid it forever. That eventually he would get another one.
 But for a short time, he would be free of it. Free to be normal even for a little while.

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